Vietnamese shares rallied for a fifth straight day as better market sentiment continued driving large-cap firms up.

The benchmark VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange gained 1.79 per cent to close Monday at 828.33 points.

The VN-Index has increased by a total of 8.64 per cent in five straight days since May 5.

More than 353.4 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND6.25 trillion (nearly US$268 million).

The market sentiment improved as investors hoped for actions from the Government to help the Vietnamese economy attain a V-shaped recovery, an analyst told Viet Nam News, requesting anonymity.

Strong purchases came from individual investors as they were encouraged to buy in assets while watching the market make an unstoppable rally, he said.

The VN-Index has gained substantially by a total of 25.6 per cent in the past seven weeks from its three-year low of 659.21 points to beat the 800-point level easily.

“They are hungry for local stocks after they have seen the market rally in the last two months,” the analyst said.

“They had bet that the VN-Index would retreat in April but it did not. So they are expecting the market will keep increasing, pouring more cash into local stocks.

“They just don’t want to stand by the market at the moment.”

Large-cap tracker VN30-Index rose 2.23 per cent on Monday to end at 777.13 points with 27 of the 30 largest stocks by market value and trading liquidity making gains.

The best performers in the large-cap basket included financial firms Techcombank (TCB), VPBank (VPB), SSI Securities (SSI), Sacombank (STB), Vietinbank (CTG), Vietcombank (VCB) and Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID), property firm Vinhomes (VHM), and food and beverage companies Vinamilk (VNM) and Masan (MSN).

Those companies are also the largest firms in the energy and mining, banking, brokerage, and food and beverage sectors. The sector indices rose between 1.9 per cent and 4.0 per cent, according to vietstock.vn.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index advanced 1.41 per cent to close at 111.57 points, extending its growth for a fourth day with total increase of 5.84 per cent.

More than 52.5 million shares were traded on the Ha Noi market, worth nearly VND483 billion.

Trading liquidity remained higher than a 20-day average but it weakened from Friday’s.

“It shows investors are turning a little cautious,” Sai Gon-Ha Noi Securities Co (SHS) said in its daily report.

The VN30 futures added 18.2 points to end Monday at 762.20 points but it was still nearly 15 points lower than the VN30-Index’s close.

“The gap between the VN30 futures and its underlying indicator VN30-Index proved investors believed the market would soon retreat,” SHS said. — VNS